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Put Americans first in disaster aid

The author writes budget balancing is important, but not at the expense of disaster victims. |
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By RON KLEIN | 8/31/11 4:35 AM EDT

The response by all Americans to a major natural disaster — whether a hurricane, flood, earthquake or ice storm — is uniquely American. We rise to the occasion.

Through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the American Red Cross and other charitable organizations, we help each other recover, from across the block to around the country. Congress steps up — and with our support — takes the necessary actions to help homeowners and small businesses get back on their feet.

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For Republicans — or anyone else in Congress — to condition billions of dollars of budget cuts on the immediate and necessary lifeline of support to those in need is both heartless and unnecessary. I suspect that if we were considering some new military expenditure in response to a threat against our country, there wouldn’t be the same cry for immediate budget cuts to pay for it.

I ask those members of Congress who want to cut before helping those in need to put Americans first.

I fully support a balanced budget and making the necessary cuts to get there, but imposing conditions this help in light of a natural disaster is unprecedented and uncalled for. Members of Congress who go back to their districts devastated by Hurricane Irene or any other natural disaster will hear the same story over and over again. Help us. We lost everything, but we want to get back on our feet as soon as possible.

Now, those members of Congress who want to tout their fiscal conservative credentials should have long ago supported a National Risk Catastrophe Plan, a so-called CAT fund. The simple point here is to plan ahead, reduce risk through better construction and use private insurance to spread the risk of a number of natural disasters throughout the country. The result would be a fair and substantially reduced federal taxpayer response after natural disasters.

The current system fails us in two ways: Insurance companies pick and choose where and to whom they sell insurance, leaving large areas uninsurable. And the larger the insurance gap, the more taxpayers, whether in a disaster-prone area or not, has to fund the clean-up and restoration after a natural disaster.

A national CAT fund wouldn’t cover all the expenses of a natural disaster, but Congress would be doing the fiscally conservative thing by reducing by billions the amount taxpayers would have to pay after the fact.

Every American understands that we as a country have to put our financial affairs in order, just like every American family strives to do. But we also know that in our personal lives, medical emergencies and other unplanned events occur from time to time. As family members — in this case, as Americans — we stand together and extend a helping hand.

Let’s not let strong differences of opinion of how we solve our nation’s financial problems in the short term change our greatest strength — our American values — in the long term.

Ron Klein, a Democrat from Florida, served two terms in the House, from 2007 to 2011. He’s now a partner in the law firm Holland & Knight.

Understood that the House passed a bill that would have increased FEMA's budget by $1 billion and was conditioned on offsets. The Senate did not act/pass the bill. Had the Senate acted, FEMA would have had the additional $1 billion already (assuming Obama didn't veto). So, why not criticism of the Dem controlled Senate - which, like the House, has been off on a prolonged August vacation rather than working on this and other issues (e.g., jobs).

I agree that we now must address an existing emergency but I doubt Congress will ever get around to making the offsets -- Congress rarely acts on difficult subjects, let alone act responsibly.

More Democrat double-talk. FEMA has $800 million on hand in disaster relief, so no one is cutting aid to anyone. What Eric Cantor and others have said is that, like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and others said in the prior two years when they were pretending to be fiscally responsible while running up $4 trillion in new debt, is Pay As You Go. If you want something, cut elsewhere or raise taxes. So, if you want to fund MORE disaster relief, how about cutting off ethanol payments of $4 billion or more? Better yet, tell all Federal agencies NOT to engage in their annual September rush to spend any remaining budget they have before the end of the Federal Fiscal Year on 30 September. That is the month when most of the waste occurs, spending on nonsense just to justify the following year's budget. Mr. Klein - this is probably a surprise to you - but we are broke! You and all your Democrat friends and too many Republicans spent every cent the government takes in and 40 cents more on the dollar. Its time YOU make some hard decisions - on what you won't spend money on. We want cuts - NOW!

Simple question. Why not use some of that tarp money that is still sitting aroung to fund FEMA. I understand that there is still 278 billion that has not been spent. What about all that money that has been paid back from the bail outs? Where has that money gone? Mao oboma can gave brazil 2 billion dollars for their deep well oil drilling. We have the funds but the POTUS wants to keep that money for a slush fund. Absolutely distgusting. Release some of that money NOW.

Not cut moron, offset. It is fiscally prudent with a $14.7 trillion dollar debt to find an offset in the federal budget to pay for hurricane relief. Why not cut the EPA's budget by 10% and transfer the money to FEMA...EPA will only use it to kill more jobs with its nanny state regulations.

The first thing the Republicans think when there's a disaster is "How can we use this to extort more budget cuts from the Obama administration." Obviously preserving a big tax break for Donald Trump's new jet matters a great deal more than whatever happened to people's houses in Vermont.

So the House passed a 1 billion dollar FEMA bill and Harry Reids Democratic controlled Senate refuses to act on it........who's fault is that? These do nothing Dems are in for a surprise next November when we vote them out.

Acts of nature, acts of God, will always be with us. Each state faces it's own geographic anomolies, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, floods, fires, earthquakes at any given time, depending on the time of year, etc. We are all in this together. Disasters will never stop. Idea: a national sales tax on all states collectively to take care of just National Disasters. No fighting from state to state over money. Just a damn good accounting system, and just non-politicians in charge, just a few at that.

...EPA will only use it to kill more jobs with its nanny state regulations.

Which exposes just how short-sighted the GOP really is - all the time. They have no long-term vision and offer nothing but live-today, band-aid solutions.

Compare the cost of regulations to the cost of LONG-TERM CLEAN-UP WITHOUT regulations. Look at history, and you only have to go back 60 years my friend: 3-Mile Island, Exxon-Valdez in Alaska, BP in the Gulf, whole communities affected by tainted drinking water or toxic/nuclear waste dumps or asbestos. Cleaning up oil spills, polluted water sources, and toxic waste COSTS MONEY. Millions to billions, in fact. Or maybe the GOP believes God would just magically handle cleanup so it will always happen for free.

And FYI, the EPA was signed into existence by REPUBLICAN President Richard M. Nixon. It was not a DEM creation.

The diamondback is the correct symbol for Congressman Eric Cantor. He is the majority leader of the Republican House who just declared another NO to voters. Oh, and be assured that the HELL NO Tea leadership is in lockstep with Mr. Cantor. No money to the tax payers is the platform of the Republicans.

No surprise, that the millionaire club members want to hoard the money for themselves. Now it is even more obvious that the time is at hand to bury this party in Nov. 2012 Elections. Adam of CA.

The horrible irony here is that those who advocate cutting budgets that directly help Americans are citizens of the red states that receive a disproportionate amount of federal funding. And they themselves individually have been at the government trough contrary to what they profess. "Do as I say not as I do," is their mantra. LOL

One can put Americans first by reducing spending that benefits non-Americans with the same priority and speed as increases for those harmed by the weather. In real life, as opposed to Congressional life, you re-balance your budget as needed for the emergencies of the day. You don't spend what you don't have, unless you're planning a different emergency in your wallet.

A Democrat from Florida probably isn't familiar with budget constraints.

Let's reduce spending in your bailiwick first. My goodness your human compassion would throw a life line to a drowning man only if he could prove evidence of American citizenship. Ha.ha.ha. Scrooge is your hero!! Well, I hope that you're not rejected at the "pearly gates" for lack of knowledge of that there "golden rule." Life lines melt down below.

Not cut moron, offset. It is fiscally prudent with a $14.7 trillion dollar debt to find an offset in the federal budget to pay for hurricane relief. Why not cut the EPA's budget by 10% and transfer the money to FEMA...EPA will only use it to kill more jobs with its nanny state regulations.

Want offset....stop the tax credit for the top 3%, cut subsidies to oil companies and multi-national corporations in half, cut off ethanol subsidies, cut off tax breaks to hedge fund financial institutions, make congress persons pay into social security and medicare like the rest of us.....make congress persons pay for campaign contributions including thise from so called "non-profites"...stop giving banking/financial instutions tax breaks for self-created toxic bonds and securities they themselves created like the mortgage ponzi scheme.